


Blissful Ignorance

by robinasnyder



Series: Sharing Toothpaste [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/pseuds/robinasnyder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian will be coming to see the body of Jim Moriarty, but first Molly has to get Sherlock Holmes out of her autopsy room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blissful Ignorance

Molly felt bad for not telling Sebastian that she loved him. It just felt wrong. She hadn't even told Jim that she loved him, though he'd known. Sebastian wasn't going to crawl in bed with her, even though Jim had set them to share a bed for months. They grieved in their own way. Molly had snuck Moriarty's phone away, letting Sherlock have a hand at it first, though he promised to give her the information on it once he was done. She still had to work on Sherlock a bit more. He couldn't have Sebastian. She'd tell Sebastian Sherlock was alive if he tried to take Sebastian from her as well… John would just have to be an acceptable sacrifice.

She felt her guts twist at that thought. She'd do it though, she knew she would. She'd never been selfish in her whole life, not in a big way. She'd been selfish in letting Sherlock into the lab because she had a crush on him, but it only ever hurt her. She'd been selfish to ask Sebastian to teach her to cook to please Jim, though it make Jim and Sebastian both very happy. She had a life time of little selfishness, but telling on Sherlock was the big one. She imagined that all goodness she'd built up in her life until them would be swept off her record in a second.

She didn't care. She'd just lost the person she'd loved most in the world, for a man who'd never cared about her for more than what he could take from her. She helped that man, she helped Sherlock because she knew there was no other way. She believed in good and evil, and she knew that Jim was evil. It wasn't a question. If he could just be Jim who invited her back to his flat, then maybe she could have made it work. She would have needed to tell on him at some point.

Sebastian wasn't evil, though. He was chaotic neutral. She knew that while he liked violence, he could mold himself into whatever the situation needed. He was bad, wrong, twisted, but he wasn't evil. And he did love her. She was okay with being selfish.

"Molly," Sherlock said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"You're supposed to be dead," Molly said, but offered him the sack lunch she'd brought with her. "Are you done with the phone yet?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. He plucked the apple from the bag, starting eat out of sheer necessity. She imagined that he did it as a kindness to John as well. At least Sherlock wouldn't starve himself while away from John, at least Sherlock could do that for his friend. She wasn't even sure that Sherlock knew that he was doing it.

"Can I have it?" she asked, holding out her hand.

"Not anything you can do with it," Sherlock said.

Molly grimaced a bit, accepting the plain black phone Jim never allowed anyone else to touch. "I just need to know who it was that I was dating," she said.

Sherlock made a noncommittal shrug. "This isn't even a hundredth of his information."

"Well, it'll give your brother something to work on," she said. "He really runs the government?"

Sherlock stiffened for a second before raking his eyes over her. "How do you know?"

"I heard John shouting at him about it," Molly lied smoothly. Sherlock accepted it. Jim had rubbed off on her, apparently. Or maybe she was just a good liar. Sherlock had never suspected.

"He's dead," Sherlock said, walking over to the freezer that Jim's body was being kept in.

"There's a hole in his head," Molly said. "Even if they'd caught him sooner he would be a vegetable." She saw Sherlock wince. She felt the same as he did. It would have been hellish, seeing such a brilliant mind reduced to a useless pile of flesh. It was better this way.

"Let me see him," Sherlock demanded.

"Don't be so bossy," Molly said, pulling out the tray. Jim's feet came out first, and then his sheet covered legs, torso, and finally head. "Help me move him to the table," she said.

She grabbed Jim's head, being careful with what was left. Sherlock got the feet. The two of them hauled the body onto the metal cart. "You already did the autopsy."

"I'm doing another once over. It's better to do it again, just in case, for when things get ugly."

"You doing mine twice?" Sherlock asked, cocking and eyebrow.

"I pretended that I did," Molly said. She reached out, pulling the sheet down to show Jim's face. He'd been smiling when they found him, eyes wide open. Molly saw him like that. She wanted to think that maybe he was finally really happy, if only for a moment. Now his eyes were shut, his face the plain neutrality of death.

"It's him," Sherlock said, but he still pulled on gloves and carefully checked the wound in the back of Moriarty's head to be sure.

"I know," Molly said. She tightly gripped the rail on the cart to keep from stroking Jim's hair.

"He can't hurt you when he's dead," Sherlock said, getting the wrong idea from her white knuckles. Molly smiled sadly. Sherlock really didn't understand sentiments. He wouldn't get how much Jim did hurt her by being dead.

"Sometimes," she said, pausing for affect. "I wonder if maybe if I'd been more interesting he wouldn't have blown those people up."

"Doubtful," Sherlock said instantly with a snort. "I assure you, Molly, you were simply not his type."

"You're probably right," she said. She'd grimaced again. He really didn't understand it. She did ask herself that question a lot. She felt guilty for those deaths when Sherlock didn't. She hadn't even known Jim for what he really was then. She'd just been a way to get to Sherlock. If she'd been more interesting, could she have held him off of Sherlock for longer, could she have stopped those explosions? Probably not, but she was easily given to guilt.

"Of course I am," Sherlock said. He probably wouldn't get past his image of Jim as gay. Even Sherlock Holmes was subject to first impression bias. That tripped him up on cases more than he seemed to want to admit. Jim had noted it, so had John, and Molly knew it too. She knew now anyway. It just clicked in her head. Maybe she wasn't a good liar, maybe Sherlock was just willfully ignorant, happy to believe that Jim was gay and couldn't be interested in her. It would be painful to Sherlock, that level of betrayal.

She'd have to tell him at some point, Sebastian's name would come up eventually. She had protected Sherlock and not Jim. It didn't matter that Jim wouldn't have taken her help, that Jim didn't really want to be alive. That was what it really boiled down to: a will to live. Yet she'd make it seem like she picked Sherlock, like he owed her a huge favor (which he did), and she'd try to work Sebastian around… how she wasn't sure yet. It could all fall apart so easily.

Was that how Jim felt? Playing hundreds of thousands of people to get what he wanted? It was exhilarating. Molly didn't even feel guilty about liking that feeling. It reminded her of Jim. Jim was why she wanted to be selfish. She didn't think she could lose any more. Maybe she was just pathetic, but he'd never gotten bored of her. That had to mean something, right?

Molly blinked, realizing that Sherlock had run off with half her lunch. That was fine. Jim's phone was unlocked. She had time to browse through it before giving it to Sebastian. The phone would be one one-hundreth of Jim's work, and way more than Sebastian already knew. If he really planned to try and keep Jim's business going for a while, the information could help. She sighed heavily, setting the phone aside… later.

Molly found her hand treading through Jim's hair. It was such a familiar feeling. She'd done it so many times before. It was familiar in a different way too. It was Jim's hair, but the cold clammy feeling of a death body, another feeling that was even more familiar. She had become very well acquainted with Jim's body as his lover, but she knew even more now as his mortician.

She missed the feeling of his furnace-like warmth. She missed his voice… badly she missed his voice. She already forgot exactly what he sounded like. "I hate you so much right now," she whispered, looking down at Jim's dead body. "I hate you so much I can't even stand it. You hurt me more now than you ever did when you were breathing. You made Sebastian cry. I can't forgive you for that, you complete bastard."

She leaned down, pressing her lips to his cold forehead. "I love you, Jim Moriarty. I really love you. I'm sorry I was too much a coward to tell you when you were alive," she whispered. It hurt. It hurt so much she just wanted to rip her own heart out and stop breathing. Just existing hurt. Inhaling, taking in life was hard. She wanted to end it all, like Jim.

Molly pushed those thoughts aside. She would never be that brave or that cowardly. She wiped whatever moisture had gathered in her eyes and pushed the metal cart with Jim's body into the autopsy room. She needed to finish before Sebastian arrived. He didn't need to Jim at all opened up.


End file.
